Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Another Government Land Grab and Waste of Taxpayer Money - the Latest Highway Bill

Timothy Birdnow

A short while ago I wrote about the disgraceful highway bill, a massive candy-store grab bag. Well, it turns out that this abomination seizes lots of land for the Federal government.http://netrightdaily.com/2012/03/senate-transportation-bill-funds-more-federal-government-land-grabs/

From the article:

"The bill may or may not be taken up by the U.S. House Representatives depending on if they choose to write a separate House bill, but hopefully what will be left out of any final version is an amendment by Montana U.S. Sen. Max Baucus. His amendment funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to the tune of $1.4 billion for fiscal years 2013 and 2014 — quite a jump from the $323 million it is currently receiving in FY 2012.

Why does the LWCF need such a boost from Congress?

This Fund helps purchase and protects lands across the country. Evidently the line of thinking within the Senate is more U.S. lands are in need of being purchased and protected by the federal government.

The federal government owns almost 650 million acres of land in the U.S. That’s about 30 percent of all the land area in the nation and includes national parks, forests and wildlife refuges. In other words, it’s equivalent to 1 out of every 3 acres in the U.S. — 1 out of every 2 acres in the West, says Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), a member on the Natural Resources Committee and ranking member on the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands."

End excerpt.

Remember, state ownership of land and the means of production is the very definition of socialism. Can it be said we have a free society when so much land is owned directly by the United States?

Looking at the map of government-owned land in the article, a thought occured to me; is there any correlation between voting practices and government ownership of land? Nevada - largely government owned and home to Harry Reid. Utah should be one of the most conservative states in the Union, and is in social policy inside the state, and has been solidly Republican, but what kind of Republican? Orrin Hatch was clearly an advocate for big government. Ditto Alaska, where the last frontier has wished the likes of Ted Stevens and Lisa Mankowski (and her father) on an unsuspecting America. Colorado used to be solidly Republican but has moved into the Democrat orb in recent years. The same can be said for every one of those states showing bright red on that map.http://netrightdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/federal-lands.png

Now, there are other reasons, particularly the growth of a large illegal hispanic population and the spreading out of California hippies into "virgin" territory (soon to be as unvirtuous as Sandra Fluke). Still, it seems to me that by owning such large chunks of these states the Feds force the populace to be dependent on them, and this in turn leads to electing people who will "bring home the bacon" for them. In short, either Democrats or RINO Republicans.

Most people do not bite the hand that feeds. If government feeds then government is given the public's blessing.

This is just one more brick in the Bastille wall, the gulag that used to be the Shining City on a Hill.

And it wastes money that we no longer have. Who really owns this land? Just as the bank really owns the home of a mortgager, so too the Chinese really own the West. When they come to collect, are we simply going to give it to them?